by Kartik Kannan

2-0 in India’s favour and it feels good being an Indian to see this scoreline. Two victories achieved batting England out of the game. India seems to have made it a habit of winning at home from the second half of 2005, where they beat Sri Lanka with a tennis scoreline of 6-1, trounced Pakistan at their den with a substantial 4-1 thump, and beat England with an impressive 5-1 scoreline in April 2006. So going by law of averages and history, would a 1-6 verdict against England be justified?

The rub of the green may be going India’s way for sure, but recent numbers indicate that in the last twenty-one ODI’s that the two sides have met, it has been fairly closer than the first two matches of this series suggest. It has been 12-9 in favour of India and the last series in England actually went England’s way by a marginal 4-3 victory in a tightly contested series. Looking at what England have done right in winning those nine games , may actually help one to analyse where the rest of the five games in this current series may go .

England’s biggest strength has been its bowling and fielding, and in the matches that it has won against India, their bowling has largely been responsible for inflicting pain on India. England’s bowlers have felt better armed with an arsenal of quality pacemen and a solitary spinner to expose the chinks in the Indian armoury. On the last 2007 England Tour, India were done in by James Anderson and Flintoff who shared 24 wickets between them. To choke the Indians they had Monty Panesar who took six wickets at an economy rate of 4.78 while Dmitri Mascarenhas who took six scalps at 4.02. England have a more potent bowling line up, bolstered by the return of their Ashes hero Steve Harmison and the more impressive Stuart Broad.

England have been successful on occasions when they have defended totals in excess of 250 against India, except for the odd ball brilliance of Yuvraj,Kaif or Uthappa who have extricated India out of the morass it used to find itself while chasing. India has always looked a formidable batting side with the fab 3 playing till the last series, and its when the batting is put under pressure chasing a total, against some quality bowling in the first 20 overs that India has crumbled. So what could be the magic potion for England to reverse the result? If they had a look at the way they have played earlier, if one is unrelentingly aggressive against India and deny them their princely supper of balls in the zone, England may just see the Greek god of Victory chasing them.

Talk about aggression. England must put more thought into the top top batsmen. Their opening pair of Matt Prior and Ian Bell has worked wonders before, but right now is looking suspect at even forming a decent opening partnership. Unless they bat as if they are going to set the Thames on fire, England is not going to challenge India on wickets that have runs written all over it. The England team must look for solidity at the top so that its best batting trio of Peterson, Flintoff and Collingwood can look at consuming the maximum overs. Aggression in batting is just one equation towards solving the puzzle, but if they can get their minds to bat first on wickets conducive to runs, India would be in a spot of bother, as most of their victories have come while batting first and have shown signs of struggling in their last eight chases, with only four victories coming,off which three were nail biting finishes.

Just to add, the Indians are like the princely class of investment bankers who love to recklessly splurge on stocks on offer when batting first, but put them in a recession environment while chasing, and doubt starts to creep with their investments portfolios on deliveries to hit. So unrelenting effort can get England back in the series and if some one like Jason Krejza could do it after getting hit for almost 30 runs in his first three overs, I am sure England too can nibble hard at the Indians, despite a new found confidence that’s emanating due to a youthful Indian line up.

Unrelenting effort and aggression, and a bit of WG Grace’s advice “Think once, think twice but always bat first” could see a different dimension of both the sides emerge. Ultimately Cricket is the winner if England manage to seize the moment! Carpe Diem361299